FTC, states continue crackdown on abusive debt collectors

January 11, 2016

WASHINGTON (1/11/16)--The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state law enforcement continued their crackdown on abusive debt collectors with 16 actions taken last week. According to the FTC, it took four separate actions, and 12 more were taken as part of a federal-state-local law enforcement initiative.

The cases announced last week bring the number of actions taken in the past year to 130, conducted by more than 70 law enforcement partners. Thirty actions were announced last November as part of the effort, dubbed Operation Collection Protection.

The FTC actions include:

ATS Legal Services. The FTC alleges AFS Legal Services allegedly called consumers and demanded payment of payday loan or other purported debt, even when consumers disputed the debt and the defendants failed to verify that money was owed, and impersonated investigators and law enforcement and threatened to arrest or sue consumers if they did not pay;

Samuel Sole and Associates. The FTC alleges the defendants impersonated law enforcement officials or process servers, threatened to have consumers arrested for nonpayment, falsely threatened consumers with lawsuits and wage garnishment and withheld information consumers needed to confirm or dispute debts;

Warrant Enforcement Division. Alleged to have sent consumers letters and postcards that falsely implied that they had come from a municipal court and falsely threatened consumers with arrest if they did not pay while collecting overdue municipal utility bills, traffic tickets, court fines and other debts for local governments in Texas and Oklahoma; and

Williams, Scott and Associates. The FTC alleges the organization used deception and threats to collect on phantom payday and other loan “debts” that consumers didn’t owe.

Other actions taken locally include ones taken by the Minnesota Department of Commerce (civil penalties of $33,000), the Colorado Department of Law ($613,500 civil penalty), Indiana attorney general’s office and the Massachusetts attorney general’s office.

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